Bad Girl
by Hans the bold
Summary: Mary Camden reflects on her life.
1. One

One of the peculiar features of 7th Heaven over the years is the way the show has embarked on a character assassination of Mary, who was once bright, lively, and independent and who now is shown as epitomizing everything stupid in the world. I and others over at the 7th Heaven boards at Television Without Pity have long speculated that this is Brenda Hampton and Aaron Spelling's way of getting back at Jessica Biel for posing topless in a men's magazine and saying some decidedly uncomplimentary things about the show. Turning on a fictional character in their anger, of course, really says more about the show's producers and writers than it ever could about Ms. Biel, who it can't be said is suffering terribly for Mary's misfortune, since she is no doubt well paid for her every appearance on the show.  
  
Be all that as it may, the decline of Mary, like so many things about 7th Heaven, is filled with potential for quality drama that will probably never be realized (which is one reason 7th Heaven lends itself so well to quality fanfiction). So here, for your consideration, is Hans the bold's interpretation of Mary, up to the events of the second episode of Season 8. As always, Mary and the Camdens and the odious people of Glenoak, California, as well as Glenoak itself, are the creations and property of Brenda Hampton, the WB, and other Hollywood big shots. They appear here only because I believe that there is interesting potential for a subtext to the story we have been given on the show itself.  
  
Finally, I dedicate this story to Cate, whose marvelous 7th Heaven recaps made this show such a joy to watch.  
  
ONE  
  
* * *  
  
There is life inside me.  
  
It's the most amazing thing, you know? It hasn't moved yet -- it's too early for that -- but there is something, something for which there are no words, that I can feel.  
  
Deep. There in my belly. Sometimes I'll just put my hand there and feel it.  
  
Life.  
  
You know me. All of you do. I'm the one you talk about, your favorite topic after the weekly service, the one whose name you can bandy about with those knowing looks, about whom you can just say, "tsk, tsk" and shake your head and hold up as an example of all that is wrong in America today.  
  
Shame on her, you say.  
  
Disobedient, stupid girl.  
  
Well, you know what they say about preachers' kids.  
  
I wonder sometimes if that isn't actually true. I don't have any way to know this, of course. When I was young the only other preacher's family we really knew were the Morgans, and Keisha wasn't my age. You could ask Lucy about her, if you like; are they still in touch?  
  
Who are Lucy's friends anymore?  
  
So maybe there is something about being the child of clergy that does something to you. All the preconceived notions, all the eyes in the congregation on you every Sunday, the expectations at school, all that. You have to be better, more moral, more proper. You can't be just any other kid, just any other girl.  
  
I tried, you know. I tried to be me, who I was.  
  
I tried at so many things.  
  
Isn't it odd that the one thing I succeeded at, the one promise I made to myself when I was young that I was actually able to keep, is now the one thing that all of you now love to gossip about? All the things I actually did wrong, all the mistakes I made, all these you have forgotten.  
  
But I haven't.  
  
Basketball. I loved basketball. When you played, when you were out on that court, that feeling as you went for a lay-up, when you made that free throw, when your shot went in at the buzzer, God, that was something. I wasn't the preacher's daughter then, wasn't being watched and judged because of who my father was. I was just me, just Mary, the girl who could play. You never knew how important that was to me, and how it felt after I was hit by that car, when I had to limp around on crutches and watch. You never knew how easy it was to believe Coach Koper when he said I was good, that I could still do this thing, this thing that was so important to me.  
  
But there was a price for his support, wasn't there? Do you gossip about how I refused to pay it? Do you gossip about how I said no to him?  
  
Of course not.  
  
College. There was going to be college, too. A basketball scholarship. I won't burden you, Mom and Dad. You can pay for Matt's schooling, for Lucy. I know you want to. I know you look at them and you see someone you regard as worthwhile. I know you always have. So I'll get my education with a scholarship, and you won't have to worry.  
  
Only I wasn't good enough, was I?  
  
Bad girl.  
  
#  
  
It was stupid, acting out like we did. I knew it then and I know it now. But that's the odd thing, isn't it? Knowing it wasn't enough. Admitting it wasn't enough. Cleaning it up and apologizing and being arrested and having nameless authorities threaten to take away my entire future wasn't enough. I was wrong, not just then but forever. You come to realize this, after a while. After a while you realize that you can never make up for not being what you are told to be, once people have decided that you are bad, that you are uppity, that you are trouble.  
  
I remember once in school that a boy liked snapping girls' bras. He snapped mine, and I shoved his head into a toilet. Mom and Dad and Matt stood by me then, but I have to wonder; what did they really think, when they looked at me in the principal's office? I didn't go to you, didn't play the helpless girl. Was this to be held against me later?  
  
Uppity girl.  
  
Doesn't obey. Doesn't submit.  
  
Lucy obeys. She submits. I've seen her with Kevin, with Mom, with Dad. She does what she's told.  
  
Lucy.  
  
I think she's the only one I can really trust anymore.  
  
It's something about sisters, close sisters. We shared a room growing up, shared secrets. When she was obsessed with getting her period I did my best to help her deal with it and I think she understood this. Mom fed her some crap from Ecclesiastes and Dad got all excited about buying her tampons, but I actually talked to her.  
  
Do you gossip about that?  
  
Of course not.  
  
And she was there for me, my sister was. She and she alone told the school that I wasn't bad, that I could be forgiven. I've never forgotten that, Lucy, even when things got to be so much, when they got to be too much. I remember my sister standing up for me when no one else, not even our parents, would.  
  
Lucy, I think, remembers what I said when we talked.  
  
About sex.  
  
We weren't supposed to, you know. Preacher's home and all. Matt warned us about that, gave us orders. No sex, girls. You're girls, after all, and sex is dirty and bad unless you're married and then it's up to the man to take control. It's good then, when the man takes control, because as girls, as women, you are all dangerous, hormonal. Lust burns in you, so don't talk about sex. Don't think about it. Ignore your body and your feelings.  
  
Stay away from boys, Mary.  
  
I kissed a boy in the back of a police car once and Matt went crazy over it. I went to a coed sleepover once and he dragged me home in a self-righteous rage.  
  
Videotaped us that night when Mom and Dad gave Lucy and me "the talk".  
  
He showed this to his class, you know. Got an "A". What did I get? Could I have said no, that this was personal?  
  
Of course not. I was a bad girl.  
  
#  
  
You weren't there, when word about the video got out.  
  
Intimate things about me, about my body, whispered in the halls.  
  
You like boys, Mary? You like my package? Bend over; I know you like it when I check you out.  
  
There weren't enough toilets this time, and it was quite clear that if I did anything, Mom and Dad had already concluded I was bad. Matt had gotten an "A", after all. Now he's in medical school, studying to be a gynecologist.  
  
First-born son, favored child. The intimate, personal details about my sexual feelings must have really made an impact on him.  
  
Lucy got it in school too, and like me, she knew better than to complain. I wonder if this was when she stopped fixing things, stopped having dreams.  
  
When she started with the Minister thing.  
  
It makes sense, in a way, because that way she could be St. Lucy. God would protect her from them, from those in school.  
  
From you, who gossip.  
  
But God didn't protect me, did he? Come on now, say the words. You know you want to.  
  
No? You will, in time. 


	2. Two

TWO  
  
* * *  
  
Buffalo. The Colonel. Wilson.  
  
Was it good for me?  
  
A military life, regulated, controlled. You may be over eighteen, Mary, you may be an adult, but not here. Not my granddaughter. I gave you advice, direction. I told you what you had to do and you didn't listen. Do you know what happens to girls who don't listen, who don't obey?  
  
Do you know what happens to bad girls?  
  
I learned a lot about Dad while I stayed with the Colonel. Why my father is the way he is, why his heart gave out on him. To be the Colonel's son for all those years, to forever have him hanging over you, I know now how it destroyed my father a little at a time. Aunt Julie? Why not escape into a bottle, to hide from the Colonel's eternal disapproving stare?  
  
You are never good enough. You can never be good enough.  
  
Until you have led men in war, you are nothing.  
  
You are a girl, Mary. You are to follow. You are to obey.  
  
Always.  
  
Dad became a Minister, rejected the Marines. They say in our family that this was not because he was rejecting the Colonel, but I know better.  
  
Julie became an alcoholic.  
  
I tried to burn the man's house down.  
  
You really think that was an accident?  
  
#  
  
We're functional.  
  
A functional family.  
  
That's what they say about us. Surprisingly functional.  
  
I remember coming home. Maybe being with the Colonel did help me, in a strange, perverse way, because living with the Colonel I got to see how bad it could really be. I got to see what the wrong man could do to me.  
  
Like Wilson. Control your wife. That's what he was told. That's what he would have done, too. I came so close with him, so close to making that mistake. It was Ben, good old dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks Ben, who helped me out of that one.  
  
Thank you, Ben, and I'm sorry. Sorry I led you on, but I had to, you see. It was my only way out, throwing myself at you so that Wilson would catch us.  
  
Another accident, you say? Just Mary, being stupid again?  
  
Stupid girl. Bad girl.  
  
Say it. You know you want to. 


	3. Three

THREE  
  
* * *  
  
Home. Mom, rushing to me like a little girl, weeping. I'm told there were hormone issues then, have been ever since. I got everything, suddenly, every favor and every advantage, and heaven help the others when they complained.  
  
My prodigal child has come home, Mom said. You must all welcome her.  
  
Home.  
  
Matt, Simon, Ruthie, they hated me for it. I was a rival, suddenly, an outsider. But worst of all was Lucy, because she hated me too. Hated me enough to get thrown out of the house, out into the unfinished garage apartment. Matt and Ruthie didn't matter; I know what they are, what kind of people they are. With Simon I knew the hate wouldn't last, because even then I saw what was ahead for him, the struggle his own adolescence would bring.  
  
But Lucy?  
  
What happened to you, my sweet sister?  
  
I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you. I should have joined you out there, out in the garage apartment. I should have taken a stand with you against Mom, against what Mom had become.  
  
But there was still the Colonel, his shadow so heavy over me.  
  
I just wanted love, don't you see? After all those months in Buffalo, where it was colder in the house than outside, the sudden love of my mother overwhelmed me.  
  
I didn't know what my siblings and my father had been forced to live with.  
  
How fickle her love had become.  
  
In time, I got away.  
  
#  
  
Bad girl. That's what they say. In the house of God they say it.  
  
You don't think I heard? You don't think it hurts to go back to the church where once people cared about me and hear them call me what they do? Do they not read the books that are kept in the pews? Are the words in the Bible nothing to them?  
  
Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.  
  
Love, and ye shall be loved.  
  
But not Mary Camden. She bathes in sin.  
  
#  
  
Think back now. Remember. What did I tell Lucy that night, that night Matt chose to interfere, that night he dragged her from her date, dragged me from the coed party? What did I say to my sister when she asked me about sex, when she came to me, when no one else in our home would talk to her about what she was feeling?  
  
Do you remember?  
  
I said I wasn't ready. I said I was going to wait.  
  
I was not going to have sex in high school.  
  
That's easy to forget, isn't it? With all the talk about my failings and my mistakes, that little detail eludes you. The fact that I was no different from any girl, the fact that I knew I was pretty and that I could easily get sex if I wanted it, the fact that my own parents had already concluded once that I was pregnant and never apologized for misjudging me, these mean nothing.  
  
But I kept my vow. It was the one thing I succeeded at when everything else in my life failed.  
  
I waited.  
  
Don't look so disappointed. 


	4. Four

FOUR  
  
* * *  
  
Sin.  
  
What is sin?  
  
Judge not, lest ye be judged.  
  
Do you?  
  
Carlos. Let's consider Carlos.  
  
I was afraid. I still am. Not of him, but of life. Life is frightening. I learned that young as all around us kids my age fell victim to a seemingly endless array of teen problems. I learned that me, my body, is a target for men like Coach Koper. I learned that family can turn on you.  
  
But I want to trust. I want to be able to trust. And yes, I want a man. I want to be held and loved and made love to.  
  
But I was and am still afraid. Am I ready to be an adult? All my life I've been told no. All my life I've been told that girls can never stand on their own, that they always need a man to support them. All my life the emphasis has been on my failures, and I find it hard to believe that I can succeed anymore.  
  
That's why I wanted the annulment. Why it had to be my father who obtained it for me.  
  
But you know, it was wonderful, my wedding. It was. To be married, married without all the stress and responsibility of my father's church, without all the anxiety that Lucy went through. Just a simple civil ceremony, Carlos and I, my bridesmaid a friend from work and his best man someone he had known since he was a boy. And holding Carlos, kissing him and thinking that this could work, that I could be loved, that I was worthy of love. He was not perfect, not like Wilson or Ben, not a paragon who my family would approve of. Just a man, a flawed, human man with his own demons and his own past, trying to make sense of a senseless world and wanting someone he could share himself with.  
  
That night I lay in his arms as his wife. We made love and it was good, like being caressed inside. The first words he taught me in Spanish were "I love you."  
  
And now, in my belly, there is life.  
  
Is this bad? Am I to be judged for being pregnant by my husband? Will this child bear the stigma my father's church and my own family have chosen to place upon me? In time, I know, my child will have cousins, from Matt, from Lucy, perhaps from the others. When these cousins play together, will Mom and Dad and my siblings look at my child and think what so many want to think, that this is a child born of sin, of foolishness, a stupid child of a stupid daughter who disappointed them because she was not what they wanted her to be?  
  
You say that they will not, but I am not convinced. Because just as they look at me, I look back at them. I know their failings, know that despite all efforts to elevate themselves and proclaim themselves as moral that they are no more or less so than I. And I know as well that you who would gossip over cookies and juice in the church kitchen after each Sunday service, you who have taken such pleasure in my suffering, I know that your harsh words only echo your own lives, your own weaknesses and failures, your own knowledge of who and what you are and your own fear of it.  
  
So say the words you want to say. Call me stupid, or call me bad. Call me a whore, if you want. But I know better, and deep down inside, so do you.  
  
THE END 


End file.
